To Dust You Shall Return

You are dust, and to dust you shall return.

These are the last words God says to Adam before he sends him out of the garden, and they are the words used in the formula for the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday, indicating the start of the Lenten season. It is fitting that these words which signify the end of Adam’s time in Paradise are used at the start of the Christian season of fasting, penance and almsgiving. What we see is that Lent is analogous to Adam’s exodus from Eden: we exit from the “garden” of the secular world—which unlike Eden is passing—to the reality of our mortality caused by sin. However, a great reversal has taken place.

For Adam, these words indicated the end of his experience of eternity and the beginning of his mortality, whereas for us they start our Lenten journey of mortality which culminates in the new experience of eternal life found in Christ’s Passion and Resurrection. The signs of cross and ashes on our foreheads, then, remind us of our present condition, but are also transformed into symbols of hope in their anticipation of the crucified and risen Christ. Lent, then, is really a season of joy, but anticipatorily so. 

As we walk through Lent, we remember presently our condition of sinfulness and mortality, but also joyfully prepare ourselves for reunion with God in the new Eden to which we are all called to.

 Br. Jeremiah Washer, OP